When shows are shown in widescreen, like The Sopranos, do they have any kind of formatting changes (like anamorphic transfers) that make them fit widescreen televisions without vertical black bars? Wow, that was all one sentence.

This always triggered my curiosity, so any answers will be appreciated. Also, I've heard from some people that movies are broadcast in widescreen by HBO for people that have widescreen televisons. Is there any truth to that?

Thanks in advance.

Well I must admit, I clicked on this thread even though I don't have a widescreen TV. But I would like to get one.

From what I understand, HBO broadcasts much of its programming in High Definition. For people with 16:9 TVs who have a High Definition thingy (receiver?), many movies are in widescreen (and high definition, which is better quality than DVD). The Sopranos is broadcast in High Definition and widescreen so that on a 16:9 TV, there would be no black bars. Unfortunately I believe HBO (and other movie channels that broadcast movies in widescreen HD) sometimes cut 2.35:1 movies to 16:9 (1.78:1) so that there are no black bars. It seems wrong to me.

That's right. AFAIK, there's not an HD channel that airs movies in their original aspect ratio if they're wider than 1.78:1. Presumably they'd crop 1.66:1 to 1.78:1 too.

What happens when a television show shot full-frame on HBO is shown? They don't have the audacity to crop it to 16x9 do they? I hope not.

mdev: Most of HBO's recent films, are framed for 4x3 but shot in 16x9, with the extra information on the edges not being particularly integral to the action elsewhere on-screen. The edges are lopped off for 4x3 and shown in 16x9.

AFAIK, HBO hasn't cropped any of its movies framed for 4x3-only for HD-HBO, but since they crop everyone else's movies, it's not out of the realm of possibility.

So in essence, its just a little less pan and a little less scan, when watching films?

That kinda sucks too.